Baby Will: 8 months.

Aka my monthly whine-fest about how quickly this wonderful baby of mine is growing up.

8 months! Almost as long out as he was in, and we are enjoying every minute.

The big fun new things for Will this month have been some (not forward) motion and lots of new foods! He is staunchly enjoying solids and is up to three meals per day, no thank you to things with much texture yet. Favorite foods include corn, peas, and mango.

Will is still nursing like a champ, once at night (sometimes skipping that) and three or four times per day. AND he eats three meals, so pretty much all we do is feed him or make food for him. Read all about how I make his baby food here! We've started letting him mess around with a few solid foods as well, so I'm hopeful that pretty soon he'll be able to eat a few bites of things on his own and not have to be spoon fed everything. We both actually love feeding him, but it's time consuming and I'm sure you're not supposed to complain about kids taking up all your time, but here I am doing exactly that.

The spoon feeding, however time consuming, is SUPER cute. Will obviously doesn't talk yet, but he's just starting to be really expressive and we can tell that he knows words mean something, although I don't think he can assign words to anything just yet. When he's eating and we aren't feeding him fast enough, or when I have to get up to get something for Beck, he kicks his feet super fast and leans forward like WHERE IS THE SPOON WOMAN, and it's just the cutest thing.

We definitely have another chatty kiddo on our hands, and the babbling/talking/yelling is pretty constant and so adorable. Beck talks to Will all the time as if he knows exactly what's going on and we love watching them interact.

Actual footage of the speed at which life is moving right now:

Beck is still Will's #1 fan forever and ever, and is very invested in his schedule, what he likes and doesn't like, what he's doing at any given moment. When he wakes up in the morning or from naps she always comes in with us to get him, RACES into his room and jumps on his crib and immediately starts talking to him exactly like we do, which is so funny to hear a little kid voice talk baby talk? It's very meta.

She also insists on using his toys like he does aka "mama look, I'm gnawing on sophie!" so that's not weird or disgusting at all.

Sleep is still easy and predictable, but we're also at a point where if we get a super short morning nap or not at all because of work or something Will can manage to stay up and just take one big afternoon nap, but we try to not do that terribly often. Nights are from 7p-7a, with one or no nursing during the night. I did almost exactly the same thing I did with Beck in terms of sleep "training," and it worked great.

Personality-wise, Will is much more calm and cheerful than Beck was. She wasn't irritable or anything as a baby, but definitely had more high highs and low lows than Will, who is very neutral and even-keel. He LOVES to be messed with, tickled, and hugged, loves funny faces and noises, but also will sit on his own for longer stretches of time and play with a toy or look around, which is nice BUT means that he gets ignored which of course MOM GUILT HELLO.

He's not crawling yet, but is thisclose to sitting up reliably on his own and has made some very intentional scootches toward favorite toys. He has a lot of random rattles that he likes (anything that makes noise), and his favorite toy is one new thing I got for him, this fox bandana toy that I think is super cute. It's a bigger toy so it doesn't get lost, but small enough that I can stuff it in a bag, and it has a lot of little parts that he can play with and gnaw on.

The cognitive growth this month and last is evident in Will's reaction when he sees me, Beck, or Jay - he definitely knows that we belong to him, and when we walk away he fusses, so I'm thinking object permanence is upon us as well, high five brain development. It also means that we're in the "he was fine until he saw you" phase with relatives and friends, which I always feel guilty for but not because I'm his safe person and he knows that.

The lighting up that his face does when he sees me is the BEST, and I can't get enough of the toothy smiles and giggles.

This older-baby age is absolutely my favorite, and I'm so lucky that this sweet day-glo pale baby is mine.

The end.

(yes. there is a blue tint to the underside of Will's chins. he has a bib that bleeds all over him because he drools so much and yes we've washed it multiple times in hot water and at this point it is what it is but also no I didn't feel like redoing the pictures or editing my baby's skin.)

Now really the end.